It’s morning in the twilight zone where our stable old electoral system has never taken us before. Elsewhere people might look at this virtual tie, and start assembling a national unity government. In America we’ll wait for the Sunshine State to count the absentees and recount the others. We’ll try to absorb the news that a deceased Democratic governor can get elected to the Senate from Missouri–but further that we’re living in a country that comes up deeply, precisely split by any number of calculations.
A split not just between Democrats and Republicans, but city and countryside, bi-coastal culture zones against the hinterland, male impulses and female concerns, right down to foundational symbols: On the meaning of the Boy Scouts, the definition of marriage, the gun issue-as Gary Bauer, the Christian right-winger observed last night-the country comes out stumped and stalemated, around Ralph Nader’s 2-percent median strip. What happened is this hour on The Connection.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Anna Greenberg, Assistant Professor of Public Policy
Kevin Phillips, author of “The Cousins’ Wars, and Arrogant Capital”
Thomas Friedman, N.Y. Times columnist and author of “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”
Andrew Sullivan, author of “Virtually Normal” and senior editor at The New Republic
Michael Kelly, Editor in Chief of The Atlantic Monthly.